1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a door assembly comprised of a door provided in a cabinet of a home appliance and a door handle for operating the door, and more particularly, to a door assembly in which a door handle coupler is fixed to the door handle at one end and is detachably coupled with the door at the other end.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A home appliance generally comprises a plurality of outer panels forming a cabinet for housing the inner workings of the home appliance, each panel largely constructing one face of the cabinet. A door, operated by the user, provides access to the interior of the home appliance. For functional and aesthetic reasons, the door is installed flush with one face of the cabinet, to form at least a portion of the cabinet face, and is manually operated by a door handle fixed to an exterior surface of the door.
The door may be provided to any face of the cabinet and may be coupled to the door handle at one or more sites. Door handles having a long handle grip (gripping surface) are generally provided for operating large doors, i.e., doors occupying large areas of the cabinet face, in which case there are at least two coupling sites (handle bases). The door handle for such a door typically includes a handle grip as a bar separated from the door to allow the user's hand to grasp the door handle at a point along the bar between the coupling sites. A horizontally oriented bar is typically provided to a door opened by an upward or downward pulling action, and a vertically oriented bar is typically provided to a door opened by a pulling action that swings the door to the left or right.
As an exemplary home appliance, FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a contemporary dishwasher in which a door assembly 200, including a door 210 and a door handle 220, is provided in a forward surface of a cabinet 100 forming an exterior of the dishwasher. The cabinet 100 includes a top cover 110 and a front panel 120 and has an interior space S for washing dishes placed on upper and lower racks 130 and 140. The door assembly 200 is installed to be substantially flush with an exterior surface of the front panel 120 and opens to provide access to the interior space S. In doing so, the door handle 220, which is coupled tightly to the door 210, is pulled downward, to allow the upper and lower racks 130 and 140 to be withdrawn and thereby accessed.
Meanwhile, conventional threaded coupling means, which are tightened during assembly, include a nut-and-bolt combination and screws (e.g., wood or sheet metal screws) that have self-tapping threads to be driven into various materials. Repeated cycles of tightening and loosening are enabled by the nut-and-bolt combination, but the nut and/or bolt tends to become loosened over time, weakening their engagement (coupling). A driven screw fixed, for example, in a material forming the door handle 210, may offer an improved engagement or more enduring coupling but prohibits repeated cycles of tightening and loosening, since the material in which the screw is fixed is inherently destroyed by the fixing action.
Therefore, in coupling the door handle 220 to the door 210, structural strength and integrity of the door assembly 220, as well as its ease of assembly and disassembly, should be considered. That is, the structure of the door assembly should allow numerous cycles of assembly-disassembly-reassembly, for example, for reworking during the manufacture of the home appliance or for making repairs after its sale, whereby the door assembly's original structural strength and integrity are always maintained. Thus, to promote the manufacture of a home appliance having a door assembly as described above, the door assembly should have a structure that facilitates the manufacture of the assembly's components and simplifies their assembly, disassembly, and reassembly, while preventing damage to or structural degradation of the door or door handle even after numerous cycles of assembly-disassembly-reassembly.